Bay to Breakers-Nearby Bar Crawl Not Part Of, Endorsed By Rehabbed Race

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There’s no drinking at Bay to Breakers this year — private security teams as well as extra San Francisco police officers will be ready to remove drunk or alcohol container-toting racers at numerous checkpoints posted along the way from the Fidi to Ocean Beach — but there’s plenty drinking *near* the race route, as Berkeley-based Trumer Pils would have you know.

A slew of Haight Street bars and pubs will “open early” to cater to runners, racers, or merely the B2B curious, according to a press release Trumer circulated Wednesday.

“Drinking is prohibited on the course this year so we’re throwing parties at nine bars (aka Pit Stops) along the race route,” announced the brewer, which provided a handy map of the Lower Haight bar scene in relation to the race route along with the entreaties to visit Hobson’s Choice, Mad Dog in the Fog and all points between at beginning at 8 a.m. May 15.

If this reminds some of the much-publicized maps of liquor stores near the race route of years past, it’s unintentional, said Emma Gallagher of R-West, Trumer’s PR firm. “If people desire to drink, they can go to these [bar] locations,” she told the Appeal on Wednesday.

“This way, people aren’t getting in trouble for drinking on the course,” she said. “They can just walk a few blocks” and do what they need/want to do.

While this doesn’t necessarily thrill the organizers of the 100th edition of the city’s most famous footrace — which in recent years has become known less for running than for public puking, pissing, nudity and all other hallmarks of a 21st-century outdoor bacchanal — there’s not much race sponsor Zazzle or anyone else can do about it, said Gina Antonini of Singer and Associates, the race’s PR firm.

“With a race like this, we get a lot of guerrilla marketers,” she said. “They’ll try to promote things, an event, whatever their cause is. We can’t really define what they’re doing.”

Of course, plenty bars and liquor stores will be open for business on the morning of May 15 — as they are the other 364 days of the year. What adults of legal drinking age choose to do with their Sunday mornings is their business, be they one of 55,000 registered runners and 100,000 spectators race organizers expect at Bay to Breakers, or mere beer-thirsty bystanders.

For our part, we’ve certainly been drunk before noon in bars on Haight Street (World Cups will do that to a body). And we see the wisdom of giving alcohol-needy people a place to drink, urinate and pass out that’s not the Panhandle or someone’s front porch. Responsibility, people: it’s the law.

“People will be arrested if they’re out of control,” reminded Antonini, who noted that this year will also feature a fence along the race route as well as “sobering stations” for perambulating imbibers wishing to sit down, sip juice and ponder the meaning of it all in safety, all measures undertaken in the interest of “having this race continue.”